Why ODM MPs hate to see Omamo in Cabinet

The aftermath of the audacious attack on the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp at El Adde in Somalia by Al-Shabaab nine days ago will probably go down as the most challenging moment for the Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo during her time in that docket.

Apparently comfortable to work in the shadows of the generals previously, Ms Omamo suddenly found herself in the limelight, issuing public statements about a response operation the military chief described as delicate, receiving the body bags and consoling traumatised survivors at the airport, answering tough questions from anxious families and representing her boss.

And she hasn’t done a lot wrong this past week, remaining calm and showing the necessary empathy most of the time.

The picture of Ms Omamo giving that visibly traumatised returning young soldier a motherly shoulder to cry on at Wilson Airport pretty much captured her leadership of the national campaign to stand with the KDF in the wake of an attack that tested Kenya’s sense of military indomitability in Somalia.

Of course, Kenyans are still owed a clearer explanation of how militants they all along knew were either on the back foot or defeated came to easily overrun the El Adde camp.
Some heads should roll, too.

And none, including Ms Omamo, should be spared if she or he were found to have been at fault for an incident that has not only led to the death of many soldiers and left others wounded but also embarrassed the country.

But it would be weird if Ms Omamo were to be sacked simply because of her looks, as a group of ODM MPs demanded last Thursday.

RABID CHAUVINIST

The “she looks like a nun” slur – suggesting that Ms Omamo isn’t competent because she doesn’t look nasty enough – was even more unfortunate being attributed to Nicholas Gumbo, the Rarieda MP, who also chairs the Public Accounts Committee.

No law requires the President not to appoint a nun or anyone who looks like a nun as Defence Cabinet Secretary.

Indeed Mr Gumbo’s party, ODM, has in the past criticised the Jubilee administration for a number of public service appointments deemed to have flouted the constitutional two-thirds gender equality rule.

Is Mr Gumbo such a rabid chauvinist he is willing to defy the party position on gender equality?

The answer would be absolutely yes, if there weren’t a background to this.

Ms Omamo is the only Luo in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Cabinet. She doesn’t owe her position in government to the patronage of the dominant political elite in Luoland, the ODM stronghold.

She has not had to do the regular funeral circuit – singing party and party leader praises like a canary – to climb the ladder. She won’t be drawn into political brawls involving the sprinkling of water on rivals or threats to strip naked to remain relevant in public life.

They hate her for it, and they’ll break the rules for her.

 The writer is chief sub-editor, Business Daily; [email protected]